2015 Annual Report

Table of Contents

2015 Board of Directors ...................................1

President & Executive Director’s Report .....2

Spring Trade Show............................................4

Advocacy .............................................................6

#ShopYK Campaign ..........................................7

Business Award Gala .......................................7

Treasurer’s Report .............................................8

Financial Statements ........................................9

Renee ComeauInterim President

Nov/15 - Feb/16

Jason McEvoyPresident

Feb/15 - Oct/15

Karen Boudreau2nd Vice President

John HazenbergTreasurer

Matt BelliveauDirector

Kyle ThomasDirector

Ryan HeslepDirector

Jan McNeillDirector

Mike LalondeDirector

Craig HockridgeDirector

Kyle WrightDirector

Dwayne SimmonsDirector

Deneen EverettExecutive Director

2015 Board of Directors

Mission:

Vision:

To be a leader in the improvement and development of a strong Yellowknife business community with a diversified economy and sustainable growth.

Leadership. Service. Advocacy.

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The strength of our organization has grown rapidly, along with the size of our membership. We ended 2015 with an 8% increase from 2014 – bringing our membership total to 294 businesses and generating $104,995.50 in membership revenue.

The past few years have brought financial success to the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce. In an effort to provide additional benefits to our membership, the Board of Directors decided to provide a complimentary lunch and keynote presentation immediately following our AGM. We had record attendance, with almost 70 individuals attending our AGM and Free Business Lunch. It was a $7,000.00 investment, but we’ve received a positive response from our membership and intend on continuing this event.

Our three largest events each year are the Scholarship Golf Classic, the Spring Trade Show and the Business Award Gala.

Our Scholarship Golf Classic raised enough funds to provide two Yellowknife business students with $1500.00 scholarships, while also generating $1600.00 in additional revenue for the Chamber. Our annual Spring Trade Show was completely sold out and drew 8,000 visitors to the Yellowknife Multiplex during Mother’s Day weekend. This is our biggest revenue generating project and in 2015, we made $71,000.00 in profit. We also invested $13,000.00 into our 2nd annual Business Award Gala, which allowed us to celebrate the outstanding contributions of the Yellowknife business community.

The Board’s main priorities for 2015 were to provide educational opportunities for business owners, to promote our membership and to advocate on their behalf.

We hosted four educational luncheons and 15 free courses during Small Business Week, and had great success partnering with CanNor, BDC, The City of Yellowknife, BDIC and the GNWT Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment to offer BDC’s Financial Management and Human Resource Dynamics courses at a 90% subsidized rate. Our third course in this series, Marketing Booster 2.0, will be offered in March 2016. This was a great partnership with all levels of government and we believe it has increased business capacity within the Yellowknife business community.

We’ve continued working with our Corporate Gold Sponsor, Kellett Communications, to enhance our website and strengthen the exposure our membership receives from our online business directory. In July 2015, we launched the first edition of Yellowknife Chamber Insider, our new business magazine created by Inukshuk Publishing. This magazine features a full, categorized business directory and fantastic articles ranging from membership features to “Six Reasons Why Shopping Local Matters.”

By recruiting knowledgeable individuals for our Board of Directors, we’ve been able to strengthen our role in the community as a business advocacy group. In 2015, we distributed information and gathered input from our membership regarding the establishment of a Business Improvement District and the potential of Yellowknife hosting the 2023 Canada Winter Games. Based on the input we received from our membership, we took a formal position against Yellowknife hosting the 2023 Canada Winter Games and brought our concerns forward to City Council. In an effort to address the high cost of living and doing

President & Executive Director’s Report

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business in Yellowknife, we successfully advocated for the City of Yellowknife to put forth a 2016 budget with no property tax increase. We also partnered with the territorial and municipal government to organize a trade mission that allowed Whitehorse and Yellowknife businesses to network in Yellowknife for several days and discuss similar economic challenges, solutions and to strengthen the relationship between our cities.

We met with the GNWT to discuss the Business Incentive Program (BIP), and supported the NWT Chamber of Commerce’s recommendation to increase the sole source limits from $5,000.00 to $25,000.00 for goods and services and from $25,000.00 to $50,000.00 for professional services. We also recommended that thresholds in the Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT) allowing municipal governments to enact local preference policies affecting contracts up to $100,000.00 for goods and services and $250,000.00 for construction be increased to account for inflation. We believe that this will help ensure that local businesses are able to benefit from territorial and municipal spending.

Our Executive Director, Deneen Everett, sits on the Territorial Policy Committee of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and went to Ottawa, ON to attend the annual Policy Resolution debates. The Committee’s policy, CanNor and Territorial Businesses, was unanimously approved by the membership of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

We believe in the importance of establishing strong relationships with all levels of government. Our #SHOPYK campaign is a fantastic example of a partnership between the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce and the City of Yellowknife that had a measurable impact on the Yellowknife business

community. The campaign, which encourages and rewards Yellowknife residents for shopping local, was an outstanding success. Through #SHOPYK, over $850,000.00 was spent at participating businesses!

2015 has also been a year of change, as our President, Jason McEvoy stepped down from his position when he moved to Calgary. Our 1st Vice-President, Renee Comeau, became the Interim President of the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce and will be seeking election from our membership at our AGM. We are thankful for Jason’s contributions over the past few years and look forward to the energy and expertise that Renee will bring in her new role as President.

It’s been a busy year – and we wouldn’t have been able to do it without the support of our membership and our dedicated Board of Directors. We’d also like to thank our Platinum Sponsor – First Air and our Corporate Gold Sponsors – Finning, KBL Environmental Ltd., CIBC, Northwestel, Corother’s Home Hardware and Kellett Communications.

2016 is the 70th anniversary of the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce, and we look forward to the exciting year ahead!

Renee Comeau, Interim PresidentDeneen Everett, Executive Director

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The Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce Spring Trade Show is held over Mother’s Day weekend each year at the Yellowknife Multiplex. With 160 vendors and over 8,000 attendees, it’s the greatest indoor show north of 60°!

Over the past three years, vendor booths have continuously sold out. More businesses than ever have taken advantage of this unique opportunity to promote their brand and products. The Exhibitor Social, hosted by the Bank of Montreal in 2015, provided a chance to network with businesses from across Canada and the United States, while enjoying the best of Yellowknife’s food scene.

A range of exciting exhibits drove attendance in 2015, including Wood Buffalo National Park’s

planetarium, ‘The Great Northern Discovery Dome’, and NWT Tourism’s 3D Aurora display. As in years past, children lined up to see Dan the Balloon Man and adults browsed a wide selection of boats and other recreational vehicles. A variety of great prizes were also given away over the weekend through our Passport program and at the Exhibitor Social.

The Spring Trade Show is the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce’s biggest event, and 2015 was no exception. Be sure to check out this year’s show, May 7-8th, 2016!

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“With 160 vendors and over 8,000 attendees, it’s the greatest indoor show north of 60°!”

#YKTradeShow

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Raising the Voice of Yellowknife Business

In 2015, the Territorial Policy Committee successfully advocated for the CanNor and Territorial Businesses policy to become an official position of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. The policy recommends that the federal government:

1. Establish an advisory committee of business people in each territory/region to identify opportunities to invest CanNor Strategic Investments in Northern Economic Development (SINED) funding most effectively in private sector initiatives as a complement to its role in accepting applications on a reactive basis only.

2. Acknowledge within 5 business days the receipt of funding applications and follow up with a preliminary assessment of applications – including additional documentation required – within 10 business days after the original acknowledgement. Make approvals at the territorial level for applications for funding less than or equal to $100 thousand that meet the required criteria, and communicate a final decision on applications within 90 workings days of receiving funding applications or provide an explanation to the applicant(s) of why this is not possible.

3. Establish an “ease of access to CanNor’s offices and personnel” as a performance standard

for the agency. Provide detailed marketing/communications

requirements in its approval letters and communicate its requirements with other partners, e.g., territorial governments, Crown Corporations.

4. Instruct CanNor to work with the Business Devel-opment Bank of Canada and the private banks in the territories to clarify which of these organizations businesses with different profiles should approach for financing via media easily accessible to them, for example their respective on-line channels, local/terri-torial chambers of commerce and media.

5. Make SINED a permanent program, review-ing it after 5 years in order to provide planning certainty for CanNor and territorial businesses.

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#SHOPYK

2015 Business Award Gala WinnersSmall Business of The Year Award:

Yellowknife Beverages

Corporate Business of The Year Award: Dominion Diamond Corporation

Breakout New Business Award: 62 Degrees North

Aboriginal Entrepreneurship Award: Paul Bros. NEXTreme

Customer Service Award of Excellence: Roy’s Audio Video Unlimited

Workplace Health & Safety Award: KBL Environmental Ltd.

Young Entrepreneur of The Year Award: Merle Norman

Community Impact Award: Northern News Services

Over $850,000 was spent at Yellowknife businesses

through the #SHOPYK Passport Program!

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2015 was a very strong financial year for the Yel-lowknife Chamber of Commerce! Revenues for 2015 increased by 57% over 2014; the comparison is pre-sented on page 4 of our financial statements.

This large increase in revenue is primarily attributed to the line item “Government of Canada” – which is the funding we received from CanNor for our ‘Increasing Business Capacity in the North’ project. In partnership with CanNor, the GNWT Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, NWT BDIC and the City of Yellowknife, we offered BDC’s top-notch educational courses at a 90% subsidized rate.

Another large difference you’ll see between 2015 and 2014 is the creation of project revenue. In an effort to simplify our monthly financial reports, most of our revenue is recorded as Project Revenue and allocated to specific projects, rather than recorded in different revenue accounts. This explains the significant differ-ence in Sales and E-newsletter revenue. While auction revenue from our Scholarship Golf Classic was down about $3,000.00, we received increased SEED funding from the GNWT, generated more membership revenue and increased sponsorship dollars.

The corresponding expenditures for 2015 increased by 68% and are presented on page 5 of our finan-cial statements. While the CanNor project generated about $22,000.00 in net profit for the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce, the funding we received was spent on contracted services, to cover the cost of the educational courses, and advertisement and promotion, to promote the educational courses. The

Executive Director and the Board have been dedicat-ed to reducing administrative costs – which is reflected in bad debts, bank charges and interest, equipment maintenance, insurance, membership fees, profes-sional fees, office supplies, and telephone and inter-net. Attention to these areas reduced our operational expenses by $25,708.00 in 2015.

As the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce has been financially successful for the past several years, the Board of Directors made the decision to invest some of our surplus revenue into our events and promotions. For example, our Fire & Ice Business Award Gala was hosted at a $13,000.00 loss and our #SHOPYK campaign, in partnership with the City of Yellowknife was a $6,000.00 loss. In 2015, we hosted our first ever AGM & Free Business lunch – which dramatically increased attendance at our AGM and provided our membership with a free lunch and keynote presenta-tion. This event was hosted at a $6,500.00 loss.

Overall, we generated $43,375.00 in net profit – a minor decrease from 2014. However, because of our ongoing commitment to long-term financial sustain-ability, our membership equity has increased from $51,603.00 in 2014 to $94,978.00 in 2015.

The Board of Directors has approved a modest budget for 2016 that includes an increase in membership, turning the Business Award Gala into a breakeven or profitable event and increasing the revenue we gener-ate from our Scholarship Golf Classic.

John Hazenberg, Treasurer

Treasurer’s Report

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Thank you to our 2015 sponsors!

#21, 4802 50th Avenue,Yellowknife, NT X1A 1C4

Phone: 867-920-4944Fax: 867-920-4640

executivedirector@ykchamber.com